•The travel plans of thousands of people have been thrown into disarray by continued weather-related distruption, with chaotic scenes at Heathrow airport and Eurostar terminals. Hundreds of people have been queuing at St Pancras in London and the Gare du Nord in Paris as the train operator introduced speed restrictions and cancelled services. BA and Eurostar urged passengers to cancel their travel plans if possible.

•The story has developed from a tale of travellers' inconvenience into a political headache for the government. The transport secretary, Phillip Hammond, said there was "still a large amount of work to be done to restore Heathrow to full capacity". Maria Eagle, the shadow transport secretary, said ministers had been "caught off guard", had "failed to keep the country moving" and were "complacent".

•Hammond revealed that 2,000 passengers had been stranded overnight at Heathrow on Saturday. He told MPs that he had asked the airport operator BAA to explain how the situation arose and "what they plan to change to ensure we do not experience a repeat".

•BAA urged passengers not to come to Heathrow unless they knew for sure that their flight would be leaving. "It is very important not to turn up to Heathrow hoping for a flight," it said. Major distruption will continue tomorrow and on Wednesday with one runway still likely to be closed.

•Eurostar suspended ticket sales and said anyone not in a queue at St Pancras or the Gare du Nord would not get on a train, even if they held a valid ticket for today. Meanwhile hundreds of passengers queued in the cold outside both stations with no certainty that even they would get on trains tonight.

6.07pm: Here are some fuller quotes from Hammond's statement:

Disruption due to weather conditions of this extremity is inevitable. The measure of resilience is the speed of recovery of the networks from such events. On this measure, the strategic road network and the rail network have performed broadly satisfactorily, having regard to the exceptional circumstances.

The experience at airports, and Heathrow in particular, has however been different. Conditions have been difficult across north west Europe, with Frankfurt, Charles de Gaulle and Schiphol all struggling to cope at times. This afternoon it is being reported that Brussels airport will close until Wednesday because of a lack of de-icer.

But yesterday's whole-day virtual closure at Heathrow, coupled with continued substantially reduced capacity, presents a very real challenge, from which the system will struggle to recover quickly. I have spoken this morning to BAA and BA. I am clear that BA made the right call on Saturday to cancel its flights in anticipation of the closure of the airport. Had it not done so, the scenes we witnessed on our TV screens in the terminals on Saturday night could have been much worse.

Conditions in the terminals overnight on Saturday were very difficult, with some 2,000 passengers stranded. Once the airport has returned to normal operation, my officials will work with BAA to understand how this situation arose, and what they plan to change to ensure we do not experience a repeat. It is clear from my discussions this morning that some preliminary conclusions have already been drawn.

5.56pm: Hammond says BAA should be to be more proactive when it comes to forecasts, an implicit criticism of the airport operator. He says airlines should have financial incentives to provide information to passengers caught in situations such as those seen at the weekend.

5.47pm: Hammond says we've had just had a dump of political opportunism. "I will take no lectures from her on the question of preparedness," says Hammond of his opposite number, claiming that the local authorities were better prepared for winter this year than last year, when Labour was in power. Hammond denies that the government was caught off-guard, but concedes that it did not ancicipate the weather's severity.

5.43pm: Maria Eagle, the shadow transport secretary, is replying for Labour. She says people are frustrated by "total lack of information". She acknowledges that the government can't control the weather, but it "should be able to control how prepared we are". The government was "woefully ill-prepared for winter", she said.

She pointed to the "winter resilience report" ordered by Labour after the problems last year had been on Hammond's desk since July, and says it has not been properly implemented. Transport ministers were "caught off guard", had "failed to keep the country moving" and sounded "complacent", she said.

Eagle challenges Hammond's assertion that the roads functioned satisfactorily with motorists stranded on the highways. Ditto for the rail network. "it isn't just good enough to pass this off as a private sector problem, " she says. She adds that the scenes at Heathrow risks damaging Britain's international reputation.

5.39pm: Hammond said there was "still a large amount of work to be done to restore Heathrow to full capacity". He confirmed the government has allowed operations to continue at Heathrow until 1am and for "repatriation flights" to arrive throughout the night. He revealed that 2,000 passengers had been stranded overnight at Heathrow on Saturday and said he wanted the operator BAA to explain how the situation arose and "what they plan to change to ensure we do not experience a repeat"

5.34pm: The debate on the high-speed plan is finally over and Hammond has now moved on to the travel chaos. We are facing exceptional conditions, Hammond says. The forecast is for severe cold. Transport services have suffered extensive disruption in the last few days and is likely to be so for the next few days, he acknowledges.

Hammond says the government has implemented many recommendations from a review carried by David Quarmby, including those on stockpiles of salt. He says the highways agency purchased hundreds of thousands of tonnes of salt for the strategic stockpile. Roads have recovered rapidly after the weekend and the rail network has been able to run a near normal service although issues at Eurostar are "ongoing". He says the road and rail networks have performed broadly satisfactorily.

But Heathrow has been different, Hammond admits. He says BA made the right call on Saturday to cancel its flights, otherwise things would have been worse. Hammond says night flight rules have been relaxed for the next four days. He says the government will work with BAA to prevent recurrence of disruption. Hammond repeats a previous statement about consulting the government's chief scientist about whether there has been a "step change" in British weather that would justify further investment in "winter resilience".

5.13pm: Downing Street has rejected suggestions that David Cameron had been disengaged from the task of dealing with effects of the extreme weather. The PM's spokesman said: "The fact of the matter is that the weather conditions have been exceptionally severe and we are seeing that impacting not just on this country but right across Europe. Philip Hammond is the transport secretary and you would expect him to be devoting much of his time - which he is - to ensuring that the transport networks in this country remain open." Hammond is about the face the music in the Commons as soon as he wraps up business about the high-speed train proposed for London-Birmingham, which has been interminable.

4.36pm: Eurostar says on its website that anyone not at stations will not get on a train today. But on Twitter it says that it's trying to get everyone who is queueing onto a train.

4.29pm: Polly Curtis, the Guardian's Whitehall correspondent, has sent this on a row between the unions and local councils on the use of grit for the roads.

Councils have been accused of sitting on thousands of tonnes of grit while the roads go untreated in the lead-up to the Christmas rush, as they try to stretch their reserves.The GMB union, which represents the contractors that distribute salt supplies and the miners who produce it, said they believe that councils are rationing supplies to put off buying more in the new year. The cuts to local authority budgets mean that town halls are avoiding using up their supplies so early in the winter, leaving some roads unsalted, posing a risk to the public and adding to the travel woes of millions. Justin Bowden, the GMB national officer for contractors, said they had received reports from contractors from London, Sheffield, Bristol and Plymouth of stockpiles of grit. He said workers were receiving instructions "not to use any more than they could possibly get away with". London has an untapped reserve of 25,000 tonnes, he claimed. A spokesperson for the Local Government Association denied that councils were badly managing their supplies, but said they had used 300,000 tonnes during the first cold snap in November, equal to the total amount used in a "normal" winter. They have jointly ordered 1.2m tonnes – a third more than last year – and councils had contingency plans to share supplies if things get dire. "As this is looking like, and proving to be, an extraordinarily harsh winter, and there are only two suppliers in this country and those suppliers can only get salt out of the ground at a particular rate, we're doing quite well. There are good reasons for stockpiling," she said.

4.18pm: It must be a crisis. BBC News is tweeting this: Watch a BBC News special tonight about the cold weather chaos in 'Frozen Britain' with Sophie Raworth, it starts at 19.30 on BBC One #uksnow

4.09pm: As we wait for Philip Hammond, the transport minister, to make a statement in parliament on travel chaos in Britain, Kate Connolly in Berlin has sent this comprehensive round-up on disruption elsewhere in Europe.

In Germany where thousands were stranded at airports across the country and were forced to spend the night at Frankfurt, Hamburg, Munich, Berlin and Dusseldorf airports, transport minister Peter Ramsauer said he was hoping to temporarily lift a ban on night flying in order to cope with a backlog of cancelled flights. He said it was important to ensure that people did not get stranded from their families at Christmas time.

Frankfurt was Germany's worst hit airport, which saw around 1000 flights cancelled by this afternoon. The national airline, Lufthansa was predicting losses of millions of euros.Thousands of army field beds were erected at Frankfurt and clowns were brought in to entertain the many waiting passengers.

Train travel throughout Germany was also thrown into chaos as operators ordered high-speed trains to slow down to 200 km/hour in order to avoid accidents due to ice clumps on the rails, leading to many delays and cancellations. Because thousands of passengers had been forced to switch from plane to train travel there was massive overcrowding.

"We're pulling out all the stops, and have put every last rail wagon we can find into service," a spokesman for Deutsche Bahn said. Critics accused German railways of being unprepared for the conditions. But the spokesman added: "This is an extreme situation which is affecting roads, airports and rail in equal measure."

In southern Sweden around 100 trains had to be cancelled due to snow drifts. But the Scandinavians took a markedly more relaxed approach to the conditions than their southern neighbours. In Denmark people accepted police advice to leave their vehicles at home with many either walking to work or school instead, or going by sledge.

At Amsterdam's Schipol airport hundreds of passengers were stranded, as were around 1,500 passengers at Brussels airport. Improvements to conditions were seen in northern Italy where transport started to return to normal after 10 days of chaos.

The world's biggest producer of salt, the German company K+S in Bernberg, Saxony Anhalt reported that it was working to full capacity to produce and distribute enough salt to cope with Europe's snow chaos. But Norbert Steiner, the MD of K+S said despite having increased his personnel by 120 and expanded the company's storage facilities from 100,000 to 900,000 tons he was unable to meet demand. He said workers had been working flat out on a three-shifts a day, round the clock system since December 2009.

Lorry drivers across the continent were experiencing arguably some of the most stressful situations, with many stretches of motorway in France, Brussels, Luxemburg and Germany closed to lorries and HGVs weighing more than 7.5 tons leaving thousands stranded at roadsides.

Often where lorries were allowed to move, they found themselves stuck in lengthy traffic jams. The paralysis was leading to shortages of deliveries across Europe of everything from Christmas presents to UK-bound brussel sprouts and other seasonal vegetables from as far afield as Spain and Portugal.

At Paris' Roissy Charles de Gaulles airport two out of four runways remained closed today as dozens of flights were cancelled. According to airport authorities, 3000 people were forced to spend the night at the airport. At least 5,000 households in the north east of France were without electricity.

Pop star Lady Gaga was the most prominent victim of France's inclement weather, having had to cancel her Sunday night concert at Paris-Bercy. Several of the lorries carrying equipment for her performance were abandoned on the motorway.

Shops and department stores in Germany, France and Belgium, which have just enjoyed a bonanza weekend after consumers came out in force on Saturday and Sunday were reporting huge stock shortfalls today as deliveries were unable to get through due to road closures and jams throughout Europe. Oil tankers had to be given a police escort to ensure they reached petrol stations around Germany, after at least 20 stations ran out of petrol and diesel.

3.52pm: BA has confirmed that Heathrow's second runway - will be out of action until tomorrow. The "they" refers to the airport operator BAA.

They are continuing to clear large amounts of snow and ice from the airfield but many areas will not be useable until Wednesday morning at the earliest. As a result the airport will be operating at very significantly reduced capacity and we have had to adjust our schedule accordingly. We are planning to operate as many flights as possible, but we have had to make significant cancellations, especially to our shorthaul programme.

3.40pm: Over the weekend AA Insurance says it received 751 claims of which 540 said that snow or ice contributed to their collision. Today, it received 650 new claims were expected to be logged compared with a usual 314.

3.35pm: Cold is more a problem than snow in the Manchester area, with temperatures dropping to a low of -14.6C (5.7F) in Stockport, reports our man from the north, Martin Wainwright.

Manchester's doughty trams suffered delays this morning after one broke down at Pomona, a station on the Eccles line on the site of former pleasure grounds named after the Roman goddess of Plenty. The depth of the chill has been nicely illustrated in the regional media by pictures of Coronation Street's Christmas party, which saw almost all the women in the cast copy the series' famed barmaid, Bet Lynch. by wrapping themselves in fake fur coats. In a more practical vein, the Liverpool Daily Post has organised a fascinating online guide to grit bins, using the three primary colours and green to pinpoint public boxes of road salt on the patches of Liverpool, Sefton, Wirral and Halton councils. All four areas still have plenty of snow on the ground, with more expected on Wednesday or Thursday. Its scale can be measured at Lowther Gardens park in Lytham St Anne's where the weight of the stuff in its branches has caused the collapse of an ancient specimen tree.

3.18pm: Here is a speeded-up video of that queue at St Pancras. Agnes adds: "Amazing that after last year's events, Eurostar didn't train their staff better or put any contingency plans in place. Just in case. The only announcements we've had since dawn: "if you don't hold a ticket for today, you won't travel, take the nearest exit". Eurostar staff don't even have megaphones, they've all lost their voice!

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3.14pm: There is a huge queue at St Pancras for the Eurostar stretching all the way to the British Library (about 500 metres). "There is no hope in helll that those at the back of the queue are going to get on," says Peter Walker, my colleague who was down there a few minutes ago.

3.10pm:BAA has asked passengers not to travel to Heathrow terminals 1 and 3 because it is so congested. It will review the situation at 4pm.

3.08pm: Pauvre Agnes Poirier. Our French friend was caught up in Eurostar hell last year and yes she's enduring it all over again. She emails from St Pancras.

I can tell you that it's as bad as last year. Worse, I'd say. My train, yesterday from London to Paris, was cancelled. I arrived at 8am this morning with a 10-month old baby and we've only just gone through the terminal building (in the "priority" line). The lovely Mr and Mrs Finkel whom I befriended in the queue have a relative who left London at 5am this morning and was stuck for three hours between Calais and Paris, without any explanation. Not that it makes any difference but it just helps to know. Paris is in a snow storm right now so it's a question of racing against time and finding shelter before the next snow storm. Remembering last year's Eurostar debacle, I left this morning with enough supplies and nappies to hold a fort. I'm glad I did!

3.02pm: The former transport secretary, Andrew Adonis, has thrown a verbal hand grenade at BAA, the company that operates Heathrow and other major UK airports. Curious phraseology though. Is big explaining supposed to echo big society?

BAA has big explaining to do about its failure to open Heathrow properly for a third day running. It appears to have made totally inadequate preparations for winter snow and ice, and it is making Britain look like a third world country in terms of its transport systems. BAA needs to get a grip on the situation, and the Government should be on its case, not simply blaming the weather. British Airways has also performed badly, with poor passenger information and a passenger helpline which over the week-end was virtually impossible to access." "It is one thing for the weather to be bad. It is another for our major transport operators to be so poorly prepared for the situation.

2.57pm:Very bad news from Heathrow, which says that only a third of flights at the most are likely to operate until 6am on Wednesday. This is the full statement and it makes for pretty grim reading.

We have agreed a reduced flying schedule until 06.00 on Wednesday 22nd December. A maximum one-third of flights are likely to operate during this period, and passengers should anticipate further delays and cancellations in the following days and potentially beyond Christmas Day.

Passengers should not travel to Heathrow without a confirmed booking. If passengers can travel at another time then they should do so.

This limited schedule provides airlines and passengers with more clarity in order to plan which flights are taking off and which are cancelled. We aim to provide passengers with better and more timely information. Airlines are currently updating which flights have been cancelled and www.heathrowairport.com is showing the latest available flight information. If the website shows 'contact airline' then the flight will not be operating today. Passengers must not travel to the airport unless they have confirmed that their flight is leaving today. Airline contact numbers are available on www.heathrowairport.com.

The Government has decided to permit extra flights throughout the night at Heathrow. The northern runway at Heathrow is open and handling a limited number of arrivals and departures. Earlier in the day, we prioritised aircraft that had previously been diverted, in order to bring passengers to Heathrow and get airline crews and aircraft in the right place.

Heathrow Airport was closed over the weekend following a five-inch snow fall in around one hour on Saturday. There have been subsequent swings in temperature to the extent that ice built up around the aircraft parked on the ground. Heathrow is currently using every available member of staff and several hundred additional contractors have been brought in to clear the situation. BAA has also deployed additional staff to provide comfort to passengers in its terminals.

We are sorry for the disruption caused and will reflect carefully on the lessons we can learn and the steps we need to take to better prepare for these periods of poor weather.

2.50pm: Thames Water, the UK's biggest water supplier, says reports of household pipes freezing are running four times normal levels after overnight temperatures in its region plummeted to as low as -17C. Yesterday it received degrees Celsius more than 2,800 calls, 2,550 of which were about water freezing in householders' pipes. Calls volumes were continuing at similar levels today. Most of the calls were coming from in east London and Oxfordshire. It has this advice for thawing frozen household pipes: use a hairdryer – not a blow torch – to gradually warm them up.

2.37pm: South West Trains says there will be a revised train service (euphemism for fewer trains) tomorrow.

Revised timetables, available online at www.southwesttrains.co.uk, will be in operation for the following routes and services:

London Waterloo to Bournemouth and WeymouthLondon Waterloo to Alton and Basingstoke (stopping service)Fast trains London Waterloo to Woking, Guildford and BasingstokeLondon Waterloo to Salisbury, Yeovil and ExeterSouthampton to Salisbury and PortsmouthLondon Waterloo to Haslemere and PortsmouthLondon Waterloo to Epsom and DorkingStopping services to Woking, Guildford and Kingston via WimbledonLondon Waterloo to Reading and Kingston via RichmondLondon Waterloo to Windsor via Hounslow

The following routes will have no service tomorrow, although South West says it may be able to restore some shuttle services on some of these routes.

Ascot to Ash ValeAldershot to GuildfordChessington branchHampton Court branchLeatherhead to Effingham JunctionShepperton branchVirginia Water to Weybridge

2.27pm: Passengers at Heathrow who want to talk to journalists have do so outside the terminals in the cold, PA reports. This does not sound like the way for BAA to win friends and influence people.

In response to questions as to why the media were not being allowed inside, a Heathrow spokesman said: "Our focus now has to be on our passengers. This is a serious operational situation. We are not in a position to take our attention off the passengers."

It will be 24-48 hours before our schedules are back to normal, please check http://tinyurl.com/VSstatus for live info on individual flights.

2.09pm: Dan Milmo, our transport correspondent, has more on BAA's problems on clearing the ice from those aircraft parking spots. There has been shovelling, but clearly not enough shovellers.

BAA says the "bulk" of the problem at Heathrow is being caused by aircraft stands - the equivalent of jet parking bays. When six inches of snow hit the airport on Saturday morning, most of the airport's 200 stands were full. As temperatures dropped, that snow became packed-in ice that could not be shifted by BAA's snow fleet because giant aircraft were in the way. According to a BAA spokeswoman, the task is enormous, with 30 tonnes of snow being cleared from most stands. "There has been a lot of shovel work," said the spokeswoman. "De-icing equipment cannot sit effectively on a stand if there is an aircraft on it. So we cannot get to the areas that we need to get to because there is an aircraft on the stand. And you cannot move an aircraft unless it is safe." Meanwhile, 100 stands have been cleared and there is hope that the southern runway will open later today. But there will days of delays and cancellations, the spokeswoman added, because of aircraft and crew now being out of position around the world and airport closures elsewhere in Europe.

2.05pm: We are now pulling in the Twitter feeds from all UK airports that are on Twitter, plus the major train operators and road authorities. The tweets appear on the right-hand side of the page (if users refresh) and are also on this one page.

1.56pm: Labour transport spokeswoman Maria Eagle has been sniping at Philip Hammond, the Tory transport minister again, saying she expected him to lead a much better, more co-ordinated response across government and across transport agencies. As it happens I had just asked Michael White, my colleague at Westminster, for his thoughts on Hammond. Here's what he says.

Phil Hammond is a pretty level-headed kind of free market Tory, who had been pencilled into David Cameron's cabinet list as chief secretary to the Treasury (CST), in other words as George Osborne's more experienced deputy. He's a businessman who has made some money, medical equipment was one of his lines, as I recall, so is property. A dull public performer, but solid second rank material. As such he gave an interview to the Guardian in which he predicted he'd become the country's favourite dartboard, the man blamed for the coming cuts. Cameron's failure to win an overall Commons majority on May 6 put a stop to that. David Laws became Lib Dem CST ( whoops, not for long) and Mr Dartboard went to transport, which he was not geared up to do. He has not made major gaffes, he's no Steve Byers always on the front page, transport has not yet caused riots; and he's stood by the Tory totemic commitment to the high speed railway line from London - and Europe - to the north. But it goes through Tory constituencies in expensive areas which still regard trains much as the diehards did in Cranford. So fasten your seat belt, Phil.

1.42pm: Matthew Tempest, formerly of this parish and now working in Berlin, has emailed me about conditions in the German capital and describes rowdy scenes at Frankfurt airport. You wouldn't see that kind of behaviour at Heathrow would you?

By its own - usually high - standards Berlin is actually struggling this year with the unseasonably early and heavy snow. The city-wide S-Bahn was already running a much- reduced service, with up to 75% of services cancelled in outlying suburbs due to long-running rolling stock failures due to a maintenance cuts programme.

Both Berlin Tegel and Schoenefeld airports have both stayed open, with U-bahn and bus connections to the airports also running - although individual flights have been cancelled due to airport closures elsewhere and problems with aircraft and crew patterns. One hundered and nine flights have been cancelled at Tegel, the old West Berlin airport, so far on Monday alone.

In the city itself, buses and trams are running, despite an accumulated total of nearly 25cms of snow over the past week and temperatures ranging from -4C to minus -18C although timetables and electronic noticeboards for both are effectively useless due to severe "bunching" of services. With the city's vast cycle lane network deep under snow, cycling is nearly impossible, meaning tens of thousands of bike commuters are now forced on to the already crowded tram and bus network. The U-bahn system appears to be functioning without significant disruption.

Some petrol stations are reporting shortages as motorists panic buy, whilst Deutsche Bahn, the national rail operator, has reported few problems with services per se, but warns of severe overcrowding as people travelling home for Christmas avoid planes and cars and opt for the railways. DB is advising passengers to travel off-peak if at all possible.

At Frankfurt airport, meanwhile, where angry passengers were pulled apart by police at the weekend after rows at the Lufthansa check-in queues descened into untypically German chaos, entertainers dressed as clowns and angels are now entertaining stranded passengers.

After particularly heavy snows lasting three months last year, Berlin tightened its local bylaws forcing shop owners, office and ground-floor residents to sweep and grit the sections of pavement outside their properties. However, compliance is, at best, sporadic.

Major city centre roads have largely been swept, although with ongoing blizzards and white-outs it is a never-ending task. The smaller tractor-style snow ploughs for pavements and bike lanes, seem in short supply. German laws mandating the use of winter tyres on all vehicles went into force in November.

1.30pm: PA has been talking to a lot of irate passengers at Heathrow including Heinz-Gerd Engels, who is trying to get back to Munich. He said he was unable to get through to the Lufthansa helpline.

I don't believe it was really a helpline. It was only to keep the idiots quiet. We are being treated like complete idiots. We are only allowed to pay and then be quiet. I'm trying to get back to my family to spend Christmas with them, not with a million other people in the airport. It can always happen that flights are cancelled, this is not the problem. The problem is how the customers are treated by the companies.

1.26pm: Boris Johnson, the London mayor, is sounding exasperated. In the last snowstorm a few weeks ago, he was under fire himself for going off to Zurich to support England's 2018 World Cup bid while London seized up.

"It can't be beyond the wit of man surely to find the shovels, the diggers, the snow-ploughs or whatever it takes to clear the snow out from under the planes, to get the planes moving and to have more than one runway going," he told the BBC.

1.21pm: Some possibly encouraging news from the Saunders family, which got in touch earlier (10.32am) about their trials and tribulations in trying to get to Sri Lanka.

We're on the move, lots of clapping and cheering. Much jollity aboard until we stop a few metres later. We are now told we can take-off soon, a 10-minute or a 45-minute wait. I notice there's ice on the window, which is worrying, and don't can't see any evidence of flights taking off. And there's no mention of ice or snow on the safety film - should you inflate the bib and blow the whistle in a snowdrift?

1.12pm: Thank you Matt. It's not just Britain which is struggling with Mother nature. France and Germany have also been badly hit today as the Associated Press reports.

In Germany flight operations were slowed even though Frankfurt airport, Germany's biggest, was clear of snow and ice. Officials cancelled about 300 flights there Monday, out of a planned total of 1,340, because of problems elsewhere in Europe, airport operator Fraport said. French civil aviation authorities, meanwhile, asked airlines to reduce their flights at the two main Paris airports by 30%. French aviation spokesman Eric Heraud said these reductions take into account the problems at other European airports that may be destinations for flights from Charles de Gaulle or Orly airports in Paris.

But Network Rail is looking on the bright side. It claims that 95% of services are operating on major routes, although it warns commuters to expect delays.

A spokesman said: "We will get people home tonight but it might take longer than normal. There will be delays."

He added that the rail chaos earlier in the month, when parts of the network Sussex, Surrey, Kent and south London came to a standstill, was due to unusually heavy snowfalls blocking access to the "third rail" that provides electricity to trains. "We can cope with icy conditions but it is more difficult when there is extremely heavy snow, which we haven't had this time."

(That's it from me. My colleague Mark Tran is poised to do the afternoon shift.)

12.51pm: The disruption is likely to go on beyond Christmas, warns John Strickland, an airline consultant and former BA manager.

Speaking to our transport correspondent Dan Milmo, Strickland said:

It is probably going to take Christmas to restore operations. It will take time to reposition aircraft and crews.

The amount of capacity that has been lost through the wipeout of the past couple of days cannot be replaced because the flights that are due to operate over the next few days are heavily booked. Unless people are willing to travel after Christmas it is going to be a case of pot luck.

12.39pm: The AA's breakdown service is reporting its busiest day in its 105-year history partly because it is so cold that gritting salt doesn't work.

It says there are currently 3,000 breakdowns every hour - triple the normal rate. By the end of the day it expects to have attended 30,000 call outs 5,000 more than the previous record set last January.

Paul Watters, the head of roads policy, said:

Today will be the day that will break all records for the AA as the severe weather generates unprecedented demand for our services. Our patrols report that roads are treacherous across the country, so even getting to the main road is Mission Impossible for many.

We're urging drivers to follow local police advice and weigh up carefully whether your journey is essential – once on ice, you're often just in the lap of the gods.

Road salt starts to lose its effectiveness from minus five and is pretty much ineffective at minus nine. During this morning's commute, we had reported temperatures as low as minus fifteen so although people may wrongly assume the roads haven't been gritted, it's just that the salt is largely ineffective at those sorts of temperatures.

With daytime temperatures not expected to rise above freezing in most areas today, the roads will remain very hazardous in all areas, so drivers should exercise extreme caution if they have no choice but to travel.

There have been a lot of reports that grit supplies are being rationed but while most local authorities claim to have enough in reserve, they will be crossing their fingers that we have a respite, so they can restock.

12.32pm: Adam Gabbatt has the latest from Heathrow's T5.

The departures area has cleared a lot since the announcement about short haul and domestic flights being cancelled. Passengers whose flight is not departing in the next three hours have been asked to move camp to arrivals - which clearly is not going to be required very much.

Marco Bordoni, from Italy, married Filomena Pecere in their home country last week, before heading off on a honeymoon that would take in London and Paris - five days in each.

Unfortunately when they arrived at Heathrow Terminal 5 yesterday morning to fly to France, their plane was cancelled due to the weather conditions. The couple stayed overnight in the hope of catching a flight today, but heard at around 11.30am that all domestic and short haul flights have been cancelled.

"I think we will stay in the airport another three days," Bordoni said. "A BA official said to us the first flight possible is Thursday, but he only said maybe."

The newlyweds' accommodation is a far cry from the honeymoon suite, although they have managed to secure two yellow large baggage trays, which when upturned offer more comfort than the cold hard tiles of T5's floor.

12.26pm: The queue for Eurostar trains is snaking its way across a large part of North London, judging by this description from my colleague Jim Griffin.

The queue fills the entire concourse of St Pancras before snaking out through the First Capital Connect station entrance furthest from the Euston road, doubling back along Pancras Road back towards Euston road, then 400m south-west along Euston road, before continuing up the side of the British Library on Ossulston Street. And it's not single file; there are thousands and thousands of people queuing (at least for the moment) patiently. The great majority will surely not be going anywhere today.

12.17pm: Transport secretary Philip Hammond is in full crisis-management mode.

He just issued this statement on allowing night flights:

This morning I have spoken to Willy Walsh from BA and Colin Matthews of BAA for an update on the situation at Heathrow. I have agreed with BAA a relaxation of restrictions on night flights for the next four days.

This means that operating hours will be permitted to continue until 1am and arrivals for repatriation flights will be allowed throughout the night. Nonetheless, the reality is that, with further severe weather forecast, Heathrow is likely to be operating at reduced capacity for the next few days and passengers need to recognise it may not be possible to reach their planned destinations this week.

I will shortly be chairing another routine cross-government meeting and I will make a statement to the house later today.

12.12pm: Jet Air passenger Simon Horton was kept on a grounded plane at Heathrow for 10 hours on Saturday, as he explains in this Audioboo interview.

11.52am: A quick update from a snowy Cardiff from Steven Morris:

Snow thudding down in Cardiff. Even in the city centre, cars are skidding all over the place. Looks like most people are being sensible and not coming into the city for Christmas shopping - stores very quiet.

Impressed to see council workers gritting pavements - but not much sign of it on the roads themselves.

11.46am: The chancellor George Osborne is stranded in New York because of the flight disruption. As a result, planned talks between the Treasury and bank bosses over bonuses have been cancelled. Here's a preview of a story from our city desk.

Osborne, along with business secretary Vince Cable, was due to meet Britain's five largest banks this afternoon. However the meeting was cancelled just hours before it was due to start, because of transport problems due to the wintry weather.

It is understood that Osborne's return to the UK following a trip to America has been delayed by the snow and ice. The chancellor had travelled to New York to promote British banking, and he met the bosses of several of the most powerful Wall Street firms during his flying visit.

With several other attendees also affected by the disruption, the meeting has been postponed. Treasury sources say they hope to reschedule it for later this week.

11.43am: BA put out this statement about the shorthaul cancellations from Heathrow:

We are adjusting our schedule to fit with the capacity of the airport for both flight departures and arrivals.

We are planning to operate as many longhaul flights as possible today, but there will be some cancellations due to the difficult conditions at the airport.

We are operating a small number of short haul flights this morning but due to the severe restrictions to flights at the airport all shorthaul flights after 1200 have been cancelled.

We would urge customers not to travel to the airport unless they have a confirmed booking on one of the flights that is operating.

Customers who are travelling from Heathrow, whose travel is not essential, are encouraged to cancel their flight, in return for a full refund, or to consider changing their flight to another date over the next 12 months.

At Gatwick and London City, we are aiming to run as many flights as possible, although there is a reduced operation as a result of the weather disruption.

We are extremely sorry that customers are being inconvenienced and understand how frustrating this is. Our staff are working around the clock to do everything they can to help. We ask customers for their patience and understanding.

The return of the snow and ice is a particularly serious body blow for retailers who would have been desperately hoping that the latest snow blast would not arrive until after the last Saturday before Christmas, especially as shopping was also disrupted in the first Saturday in Decembers.

The hit to retailers is compounded in that many are hoping for their sales to be lifted in the final days of 2010 by consumers looking to make purchases - particularly of big ticket items - ahead of January's VAT rise from 17.5% to 20%.

Supply chains have been massively hit by the snow and ice in December, with many products being stuck at container ports for an extended period.

Furthermore, the latest bad weather has some negative implications for internet sales. While many shoppers will be looking to compensate for not being able to get to the shops by ordering online, some consumers may now be deterred from making purchases online by concerns that their orders will not be delivered in time for Christmas.

The severe weather is also very bad news for restaurants, bars, hotels, and entertainment providers who will see their trade hit in one of their most important times of the year - the final run-up to Christmas.

Many people are unable to get to work, thereby hurting production and the provision of services. This can only be partly offset by the fact that many people can now work from home using the internet.

Meanwhile, there will be a hit to the revenues and profits of the airlines, freight companies and other transport providers as airports are periodically shut and the transport system is gridlocked.

IHS Global Insight currently forecasts GDP to expand by 0.5% in the fourth quarter of 2010, but there is now a very real likelihood that the severe weather will lead to growth coming in lower than this. The longer the bad weather persists, the more the problems will be magnified.

10.43am: Bored Brazilian tourists filmed stranded passengers at Heathrow over the weekend trying to sleep on stairs and under trolleys. It was not exactly a war zone, but the scenes do look a bit like those make-shift bomb shelters on the London Underground during the blitz.

10.32am: A text message has come in from the Saunders family from Edgbaston, Birmingham, who after two days of delays at Heathrow are finally aboard their Christmas getaway flight to Sri Lanka.

Father Simon texts: "Eliza says that Saturday was the worst day of her life - all six years of it! And Fred, nine, just wants to know how to work the telly.|

Although they are aboard the aircraft, their flight does not yet have a slot for take off.

"Even if we don't take off, I gather it's better for most passengers to just be on the plane. Most seem to have spent the last two days in or around the airport," Simon says.

Do we want to stockpile snow ploughs, salt, grit etc on a Russian scale when they haven't been needed here since 1962-63 or possibly 1946-47?

Short answer: no, especially when public spending is already in a blizzard of coalition-driven economies, some of which will prove to be false ones.

Seasonal travellers, the ones not hardened to the routine inconveniences that are part of life on the road, rails and wing, get cross very easily. They are on a tight schedule; precious holiday time on the Alps or beach at risk.

They have the kids with them. They want someone to blame; it's the modern way.

Yorkshire and the north west are mostly enjoying bright sunshine on Alpine landscapes this morning after a clear and bitterly cold night, but further North and along the North Sea coast further disruption has been caused by fresh snow and cold consistently below -10C (14F).

The effects of abnormally low temperatures have been shown graphically at Whitworth Hall country park in county Durham where some of the deer herd - a local favourite of children wanting to see 'Santa's reindeer' - ventured on to the frozen lake, fell through and drowned.

Upset visitors to Santa's grotto at the park said that the frozen bodies of the trapped animals were still visible but a spokeswoman for the RSPCA, whose inspector has been to the park, says: "We have to prioritise living animals which are in dire straits over those which have already perished."

Another indicator of the freezing grip is the collapse of a charity attempt to run the 84 miles of Hadrian's Wall in 24 hours. Former college friends Andy Burton and Alex Breeze, both 28, abandoned the run when their water bottles repeatedly froze, both twisted ankles and the snow and each collapsed in spite of relays of hot drinks from a support party in cars.

Breeze, a director at Newcastle Arts Centre, said: "the whole thing was a nightmare - it's still a bit of a haze - but we're treating it as a marker for another go in better weather."

The biggest regional transport problem is the failure of overhead power cables on the East Coast mainline where services face serious disruption all day.

The government-owned operator East Coast is advising travellers to "go home and restart your journeys tomorrow" although a limited service has been restored, with delays of up to half an hour on the stretch of the line near St Neots in Huntingdonshire where the wires were damaged - possibly by the freeze, although engineers are still assessing the cause. Details of services and cancellations are available here.

Among victims of the breakdown was Labour MP Jon Trickett who was stranded at Peterborough on his way back to work at the House of Commons. East Coast apologised to him and other passengers who were kept on the train for an hour and then put out on to the platforms, Trickett said, to be "left standing in the freezing cold with no explanation of what was going to happen next." A limited bus service has been laid on to Cambridge to connect with other train services.

His American readers are told of the potentially dire political ramifications:

There are only three things the British love more than weather. The first is moaning about weather in general. The second is complaining about the country's unpreparedness for snow. But above both sits all aspects of Christmas. Combine the lot — weather, a chance to complain about a specific weather event, a lack of preparedness for snow and Christmas disrupted — and you have a combustible news cocktail. Forget the tuition fees protests, if a government minister wants to experience real public and media anger he could arrange to be accused of messing up Christmas for a sizeable number of voters by failing to ensure that there is sufficient gritting.

The Highways Agency is advising drivers to check road conditions before setting out and to take a spade with them if they decide to brave it.

Listen to travel bulletins on the radio and take a severe weather emergency kit including warm clothes, food, water, boots, a torch and spade for snow.

Here are some of the latest problems:

•Devon and Cornwall police are advising people to avoid driving if possible, after up to 10cm of snow fell in some parts of the area. • Roads in Devon are particularly badly hit. The worst include the A39 between Bideford and Barnstable, the A361 North Devon link road, and Haldon and Telegraph Hills on the A38 and A380.• The M4 westbound is closed between junction 1 near Chiswick in west London and junction 4 near Heathrow airport due to an overturned vehicle. The westbound entry slip roads at junction 3 and junction 2 in west London are also closed. • You can get the latest on problems on the roads from the Twitter feeds of the Highways Agency and Traffic Scotland.

8.45am: The government has ordered an inquiry into want went wrong at Heathrow over the weekend. Transport Secretary Philip Hammond told BBC Breakfast:

Once we have got through the problem, once we have got things moving again, then we will have to have that discussion and find out exactly what went wrong and, most importantly, what went wrong in handling passengers who were stranded.

I'm really disappointed to have disrupted so many thousands of people's Christmas plans.

It's absolutely distressing and heart-breaking to have been in the terminals and confronted with individuals, each with their stories of really sad and disappointing outcomes.

I couldn't be more sorry, that's the case."

We are going to have to crawl over the details of what's happened over the last few days as soon as we've got the time to do that. In the meantime our absolute concentration is on clearing the stands and getting the aircraft departing.

8.18am:There's so much travel disruption to report that it's probably best to break it down into various modes of transports. First up railways.

There are long queues at St Pancras station in London for Eurostar trains through the Channel Tunnel to Paris and Brussels.

One of those queuing is Justin Lloyd-Williams, from Sevenoaks in Kent. He told PA:

It's chaos here and no one seems to know what's going on. We were initially told that trains would be running around 90 minutes late. But since then we've had no information.

There was just one ticket counter open. When I suggested to a staff member that it would be a good idea to get more counters open, he replied 'Don't tell me how to do my job'. I've never been spoken to like that before."

They are not managing the queues and there are no drinks.

It's not much better in Paris. My colleague Stephen Khan is trying to get a Eurostar train back to London. He says there are "massive queues" at Gare Du Nord this morning and "little information" available to passengers.

Other rail problems include:• A broken-down train is disrupting services East Midlands Trains between Matlock and Derby. Replacement buses have been put on.• Another train breakdown has led to a suspension of services between Marks Tey and Sudbury in Suffolk on National Express East Anglia services.•South West Trains has been forced to axe services on a number of suburban routes, including Surbiton-Hampton Court, Teddington-Shepperton and Leatherhead-Effingham Junction.• On Southeastern, passengers were warned to expect many services to have fewer carriages than normal as there were "more trains in for repair than usual".•ScotRail has cancelled a number of services, including Glasgow Queen Streetto Anniesland via Maryhill, Glasgow Queen Street to Cumbernald, Newcraighall to Cowdenbeath, and Edinburgh to Glenrothes.•Stansted Express trains are running every 30 minutes, instead of every 15 minutes.• Several East Coast Main Line trains between London and Leeds and York have been cancelled.• The London Midland train company advises passengers not to try to travel on routes to and from Birmingham Snow Hill unless it was absolutely necessary.• The Chiltern train company is running reduced services between London and Birmingham and Aylesbury, while buses have replaced trains between Liverpool Lime Street and Wigan North Western on Northern Rail services.•First Capital Connect report delays of up to 60 minutes on some services and 40-minute hold-ups on others, including Bedford to London. • On the London Underground, there are severe delays on the Metropolitan and Central lines and minor delays on several other lines.

The big freeze shows every sign of continuing, and if anything getting worse.

A rare "extreme weather warning" has been issued for parts of south west England. The Met Office predicts two and four inches (5-10cm) of snow will fall in many places, with up to eight inches (20cm) on high ground. The snow is due to reach London later in the afternoon.